The thing about Redlands

juljessup:

This isn’t exactly a knee-jerk reaction to today’s events, though they certainly prompted me to actually put these thoughts into writing. But there’s something about Redlands that I’ve been thinking about recently, and that feeling is especially noticeable with the holidays coming up–when we’re all going home. The thing about Redlands, you see, is that we all felt the same way about it then, and we all feel the same way about it now.

The “we” I refer to are my peers. My siblings, my childhood friends, and my classmates–not to mention the friends and classmates of my siblings or cousins. I mean, if you were a Mariposa kid who knew one of the Harrisons, one of Christina’s cool older friends, or one of Andrew’s funny little kid friends, you are part of that “we.” “We” are the people I went to RHS with, who may have also gone to Cope, or maybe even Kimberly. “We” are the classmates who I am Facebook friends with, but probably haven’t talked to since high school. I mean, did we even talk that much in high school? Maybe we did. It’s kind of hard to remember, but you don’t seem so distant when I see your face on my newsfeed so regularly. We all got really hot since high school, by the way.

See, we all felt the same way about Redlands when we were kids. “Deadlands” is what we called it, because if you were lucky enough to have a sloped driveway after the Disney Channel Original Movie Brink came out, you were the coolest. You didn’t have brakes on the back of your roller blades either?! Whoa. Yes. Watch me circle to a stop on these bad boys. Who needs brakes? We were pretty easily impressed back then, but still found a way to be bored out of our minds in our hometown. 

The Redlands mall was always a dump, but at least we could hang out at the Hot Dog on a Stick while our moms shopped at Harris’. The Brickyard was a cool thing for a while too, but you really only skated there if your friend’s big brother worked at Banned. That, and Leroy’s on State Street were the only cool places to shop. Remember when the Kirkorian finally opened and we didn’t have to drive to San Bernardino to see a movie anymore?! Or, when we had to brave the Inland Center Mall or make the trek all the way to the Galleria in Riverside to go shopping. Sometimes, if you were cool enough or had friends who were cool enough, you could go paintballing in the canyon. That is, until they found Kelly Bullwinkle’s body there, and everything kind of got ruined. 

Even though Redlands is generally considered a small town, it felt even smaller when we were kids. I remember the first day of sixth grade, when the bus (232!) came to pick me and Lexi Minder up on the corner of Oak and Campbell. We were the last stop on the way to Cope, and I think the stop for the Mariposa kids was right before us. I distinctly remember Blaine Shira looking wide-eyed out the window and exclaiming, “where are we?!” as if my neighborhood maybe, seriously, could have been Mars. Um, we are a quarter mile from your house, Blaine. Half mile, tops.

The Smudge Pot was a thing we all felt really passionately about–almost as passionately as we felt we shouldn’t be expected to go to class after a rally. “You really expect me to walk from the gym to North Campus? My fourth period is all the way in Mentone.” And also, back in our day, we didn’t have some prissy little on-campus football field! Instead, we had the distinct privilege of going to the U of R to watch our football games. One night, after a game, we hid in the backseat of Mindy Marino’s blue Honda, clutching bottles of Malibu as the cops drove by. And oh, what sweet, sweet salvation it was when the Chipotle on Orange Street opened up and we didn’t have to hang out at the Jack in the Box or Del Taco on Redlands Blvd after school anymore. And we’ve all noticed by now that our actual mascot was a bulldog, not a terrier, right? Oh what? Oh seven! 

And finally, when it came time to leave Redlands, most of us felt the same way: get me the hell out of here. The world is big, and the I.E. is so small. I went all the way to Orange County (!!!) and my cousin Kristen went to San Diego, until she gave in and came back to Redlands (wuss). But some of us even went and relocated permanently to the East Coast (whaaaat?!). Sometimes, I see pictures of you in the snow on social media, and I think how unnatural that face I know from sunny Redlands looks in real snow. If it’s not in Big Bear and it’s not fake, I don’t trust it. 

And now that we are grown ups, some of us only come back to Redlands sparingly, but we’ve had enough time away from it to look at it from a different perspective. Some of us actually stayed all along, and helped to create a new, kind of hip and desirable Redlands (State Street has really come a long way, you guys, and we are up to two craft breweries now). But here’s the thing about Redlands I’ve seen echoed among all of us lately–from those of us who left and didn’t come back, to those who only really see it during long weekends or the holidays, or those who never left:

I love Redlands. I am so lucky to have grown up there.

Where the purple snow capped mountains reach the clear blue sky…